


Klaus' Skeleton Shirt

by sixxdaysofmylife



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Fainting, Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Laundry, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Sharing Clothes, Water Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixxdaysofmylife/pseuds/sixxdaysofmylife
Summary: Five has been hiding something for a while now, on Laundry day, everything comes clean.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 362





	Klaus' Skeleton Shirt

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, I haven't written a fic in a damn while and now coronavirus is got me bored in the house and sad, I thought I'd write some angst with little Number Five because he got me feeling inspired. Massive trigger warning for eating disorders in this one so read with care if that is likely to be harmful to your mental health. Look after yourselves xx -Remmie

It was laundry day.

Five knew this as he had been woken up by a gentle knock on the door, Grace popped her head round and asked if he had any clothes to be washed. Five did.

He crawled out of bed slowly and stepped across the room to collect his 5 academy uniforms to be washed, it had been a week of training and the poor weather had caused the majority of his clothing to get dirty, so Five was left with one uniform and one pair of pyjamas.

"Here you go, mom." Five passed her the bundle of clothes and slipped back into bed, it had been a long week and he was enjoying having a bit of a lie in. Honestly getting sleep for Five was always much easier in the daytime, anything could be out there at night and he was much less likely to see it in the dark. The apocalypse hadn't made him paranoid at all...

About 4 hours later Five was awoken again, this time by Klaus bursting into his room with enthusiasm and doing a little dance to travel to Five's bedside. Five was very much awake by now.

"Fivey five, no one else in this house will accompany me with a water pistol fight and you're in love with guns so you wanna join yeah?" Klaus rambled, his face a wide smile and eyes slightly dazed.

"What time is it?" Five crooked, if Grace had been by to collect the laundry not long ago, it must still be early. He rubbed his eyes of sleep, frustrated that Klaus had woken him up for a stupid reason.

"Dude it's like 11am!" You're lazy bones hasn't been seen at all today and I missed you, so you in?" Klaus persisted, Five decided at this point saying no was basically not an option. He had been giving the whole "not being a dick" thing a go since the apocalypse had been prevented, willing to give his siblings another chance at a relationship with him.

"Fine." Five sighed, "but give me fifteen minutes I need to get dressed."

"Yes, yes, yes! Meet me in the courtyard when you're ready, and be prepared because you're going down." With this Klaus bound out of the room, giggling. Five forwent the urge to sigh and rather smiled, at least Klaus wasn't sick from withdrawal anymore.

He swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood up slowly to prevent getting a huge burst of lightheadedness, it had been happening a lot recently, especially when he jumped. It didn't concern him though, it had happened for so long in the apocalypse that it had just become a part of his daily routine.

Yawning and stretching he got undressed and into the academy uniform, it wasn't like he enjoyed wearing it but, since Dolores left his life, going to a clothes shop where there were mannequins everywhere always got Five down. He had nothing else to wear, so he wore the uniform. It seemed to be hotter out today than it had been in a while and Five was grateful, rain made him uncomfortable especially when it was humid and his clothes stuck to him.

Once he was dressed, Five ignored the urge to grab breakfast and grabbed coffee instead, Diego was in the kitchen cooking something that smelled nice but Five wasn't interested, so he quickly jumped to the living room to drink his coffee.

Vanya was sat there and she jumped as soon as Five appeared.

"Dammit Five, couldn't you just walk here?" She said chuckling, she wasn't really cross at him, seeing him at all was nice. He had been either cooped up in his room doing maths or training in the courtyard in the warm rain so Vanya really didn't see him often. "Klaus ask you to play too?"

Five nodded, taking a sip of his slightly cooled coffee,

"He convinced me to do it, cant say I'm excited but in this heat it would be nice to cool off a bit." Five explained, placing his now drained cup on the side table. "See you later, Vanya." 

"Bye Fi-" before she could finish he had zapped away.

-

Klaus was waiting in the courtyard, as promised, he had found a good hiding spot to get Five soaked as soon as he left the house, providing that he wouldn't jump here of course, and was waiting patiently, chatting to Ben.

"I can't believe you wouldn't make me corporeal for this, we could get him as a team!" Ben sighed, bored of waiting.

"Sorry Benny boy, I play alone, besides I wouldn't be able to play very well if I made you corporeal then I would be using too much energy, I'm still not amazing at it." Klaus whined, Ben sighed again but noticed Five was creeping up on Klaus from behind and was armed with a water pistols.

"You really think I would be dumb enough to walk in here Klaus, it's almost like you forget I was a super superpowered assassin." Five remarked, surprising Klaus and proceeding to spray him with a stream of water.

Ben laughed from his perch in the tree above them and watched as carnage broke loose in the courtyard, Five zapping about and Klaus shouting and charging at him with a stream of water in his direction. It didn't take long before they were both completely soaked.

It had been surprisingly fun but all the zapping about had made Five feel incredibly dizzy and so he stopped against a wall and called time out to Klaus who was about to squirt water right at his face. 

"You good, little man?" Klaus asked, brushing water out of his mildly concerned eyes. He approached Five and threw his water pistol down as he saw his brother's eyes roll back and his body start to drop to the ground. Within a second Klaus was under him and holding him up from hitting his head. "Jesus, Five, you should've told me you were feeling bad!"

Five groaned into his chest and seemed to slip into unconscious once again. This time Klaus couldn't get a reaction out of him.

"Shit, Ben what do I do?" Klaus panicked and asked his ghostly brother who looked equally as worried.

"Take him to the others, Grace could help him?" Ben suggested, Following Klaus as he headed inside, Little Five in his arms, he wasn't struggling with his weight which concern them both, Five was pretty young obviously but even a 13 year old should weigh enough for Klaus to struggle with. Ben tried not to think about it too hard.

Once they had reached the kitchen, Diego noticed Klaus enter and quickly stopped his cooking to attend to Five, who had been placed on the kitchen table, still out cold.

"Damn, what happened to him?" Diego asked, prodding Five in the cheek to try and wake him up.

"I think he over used his powers," Klaus said, out of breath from running with Five in his arms. "But Diego, I'm worried, when I was carrying him I noticed something, he's incredibly light, like insanely so, I felt like I was carrying a child!"

"He is a child, Klaus." Diego said, more concerned that his little brother wasn't waking up, he was still breathing but even that was slow.

"No, Diego." Klaus said with a deadpan seriousness, this brought Diego's attention, "it wasn't healthy, I remember picking him up when we were younger and him being heavy, but this was far different, for God's sake look at him, he's tiny." 

Klaus had a point, Diego unbuttoned Five's signature blazer and saw the way that his wet shirt stuck to what little of him that was there, his ribs were all poking through and his stomach was almost non existent. 

"Okay, what the hell." Diego was at a loss for words as he gasped at the horrifying sight in front of him. "I don't know about you but I did not look like that at 13." 

Klaus shook his head, he had been small at 13, but so had Five and he had seen him then, it was nothing like this. He reached over and placed a hand on Five's cheek, noticing how sunken in his eyes were and how hollow his cheeks had become.

"What's happened to him?" Klaus asked no one in particular, everyone around him was silent, until Klaus noticed Diego tearing up at the morbid sight of his brother.

"I noticed something a while ago, thought it was nothing, just another weird Five thing." Diego started, wiping a tear away with the back of his hand, "You ever noticed how Five always makes excuses at dinner, or says he already ate, or even forgoes meals altogether for a cup of coffee?" 

Sadly, Klaus nodded. He bit his lip and took a deep sigh.

"Well, shit." He exclaimed, Ben seemed to have started crying too, and he was getting close, seeing Five so tiny and fragile scared him, he saw the little guy as tough and without weakness for so long, sometimes he forgot what he had been through and how he never spoke if something was clearly wrong with him. 

"He's been working out like crazy, too, like going out into the rain and getting soaked just so he can train until he passes out. He thinks no one notices because he does it late at night, but he's not the only one with a messed up sleep schedule." Ben explained, it would make sense that he would go and visit his other siblings at night, if Klaus was asleep there was little else for Ben to get up to, so if a sibling of his was awake it always seemed a better option.

"Fuck." They all turned to look at Five, who was now awake and curled into a ball on the table before them. "Shit." He said as he noticed the scared looks of his siblings and the location he was sitting in.

"Oh my god, Five, you had me so worried what the hell!" Klaus babled, grabbing onto his brother like a clamp and sobbing into his back. He pulled away once he noticed Five was whimpering, "Hey, hey, what's going on with you little guy, you're so fucking thin." 

Five recoiled and his face turned pink in embarrassment. He'd been found out. Rapidly he pushed his wrists together and teleported away before another confrontation could happen.

"For fucks sake." Diego growled, "He can't just run away from this he has a serious problem and he's sick, he's just gonna get himself hurt."

Klaus nodded, sad that Five wouldn't open up to him so he could get some help for whatever it was that was making him so unwell.

"I think we should call a family meeting, this is serious and I'm not sure how to help him alone." Klaus explained, Diego agreed and followed Klaus to the living room to hopefully find some more of their family.

"You've got to be gentle, Klaus, Five isn't likely to just open up after all this time, he can't he just started doing this, you see him." Ben warned, wishing that he was alive so he could help out Five through his pain.

They arrived into the lounge and found Vanya and Allison chatting about the next concerts Vanya would be performing in, regardless of what happened at the last one, their sister was still incredibly talented and found peace in playing.

"We need to have a family meeting." Diego stated, interrupting their discussion. Allison rolled her eyes,

"What's happened now?" She asked, not particularly interested as the usual topic for family meetings was pointless and ended in fights.

"Five is really sick." Klaus explained, not wanting to give too much away until the whole family, minus Five, was together.

"What? I saw him like ten minutes ago Klaus, he looked fine." Vanya expressed, concern knitting her brows. She and Five had always been close, whenever he was in trouble it hurt her to know he didn't come to her.

"I'm gonna grab Luther and we can start." Klaus explained.

-

"So you're saying you think Five is starving himself?" Luther asked, confused by the rambling of concern from Diego and Klaus.

"Maybe. But he's certainly seriously underweight and as soon as we confronted him on it he left. He looked so scared." Klaus explained for what seemed like the millionth time.

"We've got to talk to him, if this has been going on for a really long time then he could be a lot worse than we think, I dont remember seeing him eat a single time since he came through that time hole and had a sandwich!" Said Vanya, sadly. She couldn't believe it at first but it added up, Five really was dealing with something here.

Suddenly a zap of blue appeared in the corner of the room and everyone turned their head to see Five appear and fall flat on the floor.

"Holy shit." Allion cried and quickly walked over to him, the rest of them followed. 

Five was lying prone on the floor, he was dressed in nothing but an oversized black shirt with skeletons printed all over it.

"Why is he wearing my shirt?" Klaus pondered, he recognised it as his own as soon as Five had appeared, it was one of his favourites this time of year as it was soft and light, but on Five's frame is was scarily big.

"Five? Are you okay?" Diego asked his little brother as he slowly picked himself off the floor and stared at his siblings, most of which had tears in their eyes.

"Sorry I-, I didn't mean to teleport here." Five crooked out, his throat clearly raw from what they presumed was crying. He put his hands together to jump but nothing happened, he groaned and nearly fell again before Luther caught him.

"Woah there, come on let's get you to a chair." Luther hauled Five up into his arms with absolutely no problem, it was as if he was holding a feather. Five tried to kick himself free of his brothers hold so he could get away from them but quickly give up from exhaustion.

Once he was sat down on the sofa, tiny legs poking out from Klaus' skeleton shirt and arms looking tiny dangling from the sleeves, they all realised Klaus and Diego had been so correct it was painful. 

Five knew it, he knew they all knew now, he couldn't hide anymore.

"I suppose the cats out of the bag." He said with a somber tone. His eyes began to well up again and he completely changed, his demeanor went from stiff and frustrated to become broken to a pulp, his body slumped and he buried his head in the little mass of his arms.

"We're hear for you Fivey, we can help you get through this." Klaus rubbed his back, ignoring the amount of spine poking him through the shirt.

"Thank you." Five replied, muffled and quiet, he continued to sob but tried to face his siblings around him, all watching with worry and love in their eyes.

"We care so much about you Five, when you left us it broke us apart, you know we would do anything to help." Diego looked at his brother in the eyes, placing a hand on this side of his face and wiping away his tears.

Five nods, overwhelmed by the support his family were showing him, it was unusual to be at the receiving end of so much love after years and years of nothingness.

"We're in this together." Ben said, corporeal behind Klaus, "I might not always be here but I am here watching over you and I want to help you be okay." He smiled warmly at Five and disappeared, sending the small boy into hysterics and clutching onto Klaus who had slumped a little bit.

"I promise I'll try." Five said, to no one and everyone. This was going to be a long, hard battle, one that had started so many years ago. He was willing to help himself and seek love from his family, after spending so much time trying to save them, perhaps it was time to let them do the same for him.

"I promise."


End file.
